of his Master2378 (though, as Luke the Evangelist declares more plainly, he ate and drank
with the rest of His disciples this first Sacrament of His body and blood, consecrated2379 by
the Lord’s hands), did he “dwell in Christ and Christ in him”? Do so many, in fine, who
either in hypocrisy eat that flesh and drink that blood, or who after they have eaten and
drunk become apostate, do they “dwell in Christ or Christ in them”? Yet assuredly there is
a certain manner of eating that Flesh and drinking that Blood, in which whosoever eateth
and drinketh, “he dwelleth in Christ and Christ in him.” As then he doth not “dwell in Christ
and Christ in him,” who “eateth the Flesh and drinketh the Blood of Christ” in any manner
whatsoever, but only in some certain manner, to which He doubtless had regard when He
spake these words. So in this expression also, “He that shall blaspheme against the Holy
Ghost hath never forgiveness,” he is not guilty of this unpardonable sin, who shall blaspheme
in any way whatever, but in that particular way, which it is His will, who uttered this true
and terrible sentence, that we should seek out and understand.
18. Now as to what that mode, or immoderateness2380 rather, of blasphemy is, what
that particular blasphemy, and what that word against the Holy Ghost, the order of my
discourse requires me to say what I think, and not to put off any longer your expectation
which has been so long but so necessarily deferred. Ye know, Dearly beloved, that in that
invisible and incorruptible Trinity, which our faith and the Church Catholic maintains and
preaches, God the Father is not the Father of the Holy Spirit, but of the Son; and that God
the Son is not the Son of the Holy Spirit, but of the Father; but that God the Holy Spirit is
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the Spirit not of the Father only, or of the Son only, but of the Father and the Son. And that
this Trinity, although the2381 Property and particular2382 Subsistence2383 of each person is
preserved, is yet, because of the undivided and inseparable Essence or Nature of Eternity,2384
Truth, and Goodness, not three Gods but One God. And by this means, according to our
capacity, and as far as it is granted us to see these things “through a glass darkly,” especially
being such as we now are, there is conveyed to2385 us the idea of Origination2386 in the
2378 Luke xxii. 21.
2379 Confectum.
2380 Blasphemandi modus, vel potius immoderatio.
2381 Proprietate.
2382 Substantia.
2383 See note on the word Hypostasis in the Nicene Anathema, St. Ath. Treatises against Arianism, part 1,
p. 66, Oxford translation.
2384 Conf. lib. vii. x. (16).
2385 Insinuatur.
2386 Auctoritas; St. Augustin, C. Maxim. iii. 14, guards the word against any idea of inequality; see Pet. De
Trin. v. and 5. 11–13, who observes that the Greeks have no word exactly corresponding, although ἀρχή, αἴτιον,
are equivalent.
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On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xii. 32, ‘Whosoever shall speak a word…